


Just Another Mask, Just Another Story

by sultrybutdamaged



Category: Harley Quinn (Cartoon 2019)
Genre: Brief moment of child endangerment, Canon Typical Violence, Gen, Past Harley Quinn/Joker - Freeform, References to Arkham Asylum's Dubious Medical Treatment, References to Gotham City's Dubious Criminal Justice System, references to mental illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 13:33:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29279256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sultrybutdamaged/pseuds/sultrybutdamaged
Summary: Harley Quinn has always had a tattoo on her right shoulder, and she's always known what it meant.  But when a series of disturbing dreams and a concussion leave her wondering which of her memories can really be trusted, Harley becomes determined to find out what really happened on the night she got that mark.  And that may mean trusting the last person any Gotham supervillain should... the Batman.
Relationships: Harleen Quinzel & Lucy Quinzel, Harley Quinn & Batman, Harley Quinn & Poison Ivy
Kudos: 18
Collections: DCTVGen Valentines 2021 Exchange





	Just Another Mask, Just Another Story

_It’s just another costume.Just another mask._

_It’s just a story._

_“- promise… be safe - Harley…”_

It’s weird, dreams are usually clearer than this.Especially Harley’s dreams, all bright technicolor and blaring surround-sound, like she’s at the center of the Joker’s mad circus.Crimson blood and high-pitched screams that might be laughter or something else.Harley’s brain makes up incredible stories for her when she’s asleep.Sometimes she tries to make the real world match them, but it never quite works.

Not this dream though.That’s interesting enough to make her pay attention.

_“Are you going to let me see your face?”He’s got his back to her, and it’s dark where he’s standing, like there are extra shadows draped around him.But that doesn’t make sense._

Dream logic.She took a Jung elective back in school.It’s a dark room, it’s all shadows anyway. 

_“That wouldn’t be wise.”She can hear his words, but the tone of voice is blurred, like he’s on a cellphone in a tunnel, or underwater.Then the dream jumps, they’re outside now, the wrought-iron gates rising over their heads, a cold harvest moon in the sky.Joker likes to talk about the harvest moon.Harley usually has no idea what the fuck he’s on about, though she tries to pay attention._

Tried.Past tense.Right?

_A hand lands on her shoulder, thick leather, surprisingly warm to the touch.Surprisingly gentle, too.Something is missing, she thinks._

_“Soon… promise - forget.”_

_“What if I change my mind?”She sounds a little panicky to her own ears, very unlike herself.She’s not sure if it’s the Harley in the dream - back in her harlequin’s mask, ugh, what the fuck subconscious? - or the one observing who says that._

Who is the one observing?Interesting thought.Maybe it’s Dr. Quinzel, sane Harleen?Let’s not go too far down that road.

_The strange man’s voice is kind, she thinks, but his words are still implacable.“Too late.”_

__

“The fuck was that?” Harley muttered when she woke up.

She rolled out of bed, yanking off the sweat-soaked T-shirt that was the only thing she was wearing.(Ivy said it was “creepy” that she was still sleeping in Penguin’s nephew’s bar mitzvah souvenir, but say what you wanted for Mrs. Cobblepot, she picked high-quality gifts for her guests.) 

Harley stalked her way across the spare bedroom Ivy was letting her stay in indefinitely, kicking aside the mess of dirty clothes and dishes and random effluvia from heists that she hadn’t decided what to do with, finally making her way to the bathroom.She ran the water in the sink, splashing it over her face once it was cold enough.The shock was mild, but enough to wake her up.It reminded her of something that had happened… a few years ago, maybe?Someone had dumped cold water on her when she was yelling.Maybe a cop who was taking her to Arkham.Maybe someone at Arkham.The place had never had any ethical standards.

She’d never had a very reliable memory, at least not for things that actually happened to her.Books, sure, she could memorize the DSM-V, but events were slippery, they shifted out of place and reformed as something else.That was probably why she didn’t remember the -

“It was a dream,” she snarled.She made herself look up at the mirror.It was her own face there, white skin, her color-streaked hair hanging down.The face Joker’s vat of chemicals had made and then Harley had made her own.The little tattoo on her left shoulder caught her attention, and she frowned, then brushed the thought aside.

“It was just a fucking dream,” she said, more firmly, and felt the story taking shape in her head. 

And in place of the eerie feeling the dream had left her fell excitement as she remembered what was happening tonight.

It was Heist Night!

The dream slipped into a new shape, firm and flat and bright, in her head, and Harley went to put on her costume.

—

“I’m not sure a one-woman job really counts as a heist,” Ivy said.“I think that’s just a robbery.”

“Ugh, no.Robberies are for losers.”Harley squirmed, trying to reach around to the back of her halter top.Leather was a lot less flexible than spandex, even if it did come with advantages for covering your bits, not to mention avoiding looking like you were committing crimes in your pajamas.“Could you get this zipper?”Her roommate got up from the bed and came to stand behind her, tugging the back of her costume top into place.“The difference between a heist and a robbery is just one of marketing.Real supervillains know how to make themselves sound impressive.That’s in the Legion of Doom handbook.”

“There’s a handbook?” Ivy sighed, probably because she was sick of hearing about the Legion of Doom.Well, tough.Ivy had her goals - wiping out the human race, maybe, or at least the ones who were oil company executives - and Harley had her own.Best friends supported each other. 

“There is, and I have it memorized.Except for the boring parts.Bane wrote those.”Ivy patted her back, signaling that her top was now in place, and Harley flashed her a smile as she went to the vanity to finish her makeup.

“I’m just saying, Harls, don’t you think you’re maybe getting a little ahead of yourself?”Harley glared at her friend in the mirror, and Ivy, still standing behind her, raised her hands in surrender.“It’s not that I don’t think you can handle it.You know I have faith in you.But a museum?Why not start small and work your way up?A jewelry store or something?”

“Why would I want to rob a jewelry store?” Harley asked patiently.“I don’t wear jewelry.”She’d thought about it, maybe some slinky earrings to finish off the look when she’d changed up her costume, but her hair already gave her one weakness that some cop or Justice Leaguer could grab in a fight.These were the kinds of practical considerations the old Harley hadn’t worried about.This new Harley had to be smarter than that.“But I do love an interesting conversation piece.Cursed object, taxidermic lion’s head, one of those dolls made with a dead kid’s hair?Museums are full of that crap.We can put one on the new coffee table I’m gonna buy you.” 

She dug through the mess on her bureau for her lipstick.Maybe her friend had a point and she should occasionally clean up in here, but Harley liked mess.The chaos felt like her, everything out in the open and nothing really making sense.Thinking about cleaning up put her in the same mood as thinking about -

“Here you go.”Ivy handed her the lipstick.“It was over on the bookshelf, under the blueprints for your heist.”

“Thanks!”Harley applied the deep red lipstick, then flashed a grin in the mirror.“Whaddya think?”

Ivy’s expression softened like it only did when no one could see her. “Perfect.The new costume is really working.”Her eyes dropped to Harley’s outfit and a strange frown flickered across her face.

“What?”Harley followed her gaze, and saw her friend was looking at the little tattoo on her shoulder.For a minute, her own mood faltered before she remembered the story. This story could always cheer her up.“Did I ever tell you about that?It’s the tattoo I got the first time I went out as Harley Quinn.See, 10-2.February 10th.My rebirth day.”She scowled.“Of course, maybe I need a new one that doesn’t remind me of that dickwad Joker.”She glanced up and frowned at the odd look still on Ivy’s face.“What?”

“Nothing.”Ivy pattered her shoulder, and Harley almost shuddered, remembering the feel of a comforting hand wrapped in leather - “You’ve got a heist to pull off.”

“That’s the spirit.”Harley picked up her bat and walked out into the living room, waving to Frank as she passed his pot.“I’ll bring ya back something cool, kay?”

“Ooh, I want the Declaration of Independence!” Frank said.The Venus fly-trap danced around, fronds waving.“The only good heist is one that steals the Declaration of Independence!”

“We’ve talked about the difference between movies and reality, Frank,” Ivy said.

“You’re getting a key-chain from the giftshop and you’re going to like it,” Harley said.At the door, she paused, glancing back at her friend.“Are you sure you don’t want to come along?” she asked.“I mean, I can totally pull off a one-woman heist like I pull off pink hair with this outfit.But it could be fun?”

Ivy gave a wry smile.“Maybe I’ll see you around,” she said. 

—

A heist _should_ be fun.Harley should have been having the time of her life.Now that Joker was out of the picture, smashing windows and bashing heads and generally causing chaos all on her own was what she _did_.

She couldn’t understand why she was so distracted.

“It was just a stupid dream!” she shrieked, swinging her bat.The blaring of the museum’s alarm system almost drowned her out, and she raised her voice so the guard whose kneecap she’d just shattered could hear her.“It doesn’t fucking mean anything!”He gave her a wide-eyed, terrified nod, and she sighed, swinging around in the other direction to catch the one coming up behind her with a high-kick.“I don’t even remember what it was about.”

She paused to catch her breath, noticing that all the guards were down.She’d made it in the window, with a solid shot at sneaking around through the vent system and grabbing what she wanted from the display of 17th century art, but going through the lobby instead had been more tempting.Harley didn’t even like art, and all that talk about decorating Ivy’s apartment had been just talk.She hadn’t quite figured out how criminals like the Legion of Doom made crime profitable; for her it was still mostly about breaking shit.But high-profile jobs like museum got the Legion’s attention.“Maybe they’ll be more guards down towards the exhibit halls,” she said - out loud, to herself, that was another thing New Harley did - and set out.

The museum was irritatingly empty.Harley wasn’t sure she totally got the point of robberies - _heists_.How did people find out you were a great supervillain if you just broke into places when no one was there?Maybe she’d had the right idea when she’d thought about taking the city council hostage or threatening to blow up a fancy charity ball.The kind of things _he_ did.

But who was she kidding?She had no idea how to build a bomb.And maybe if she could figure out how to sell some of this shit on the black market, she could start contributing rent, or at least replace the TVs she broke in her rages, before Ivy got sick of her -

Later, she would blame her generally distracted mood for why she didn’t notice the cop working a double-shift as a security guard until his baton was crashing down on her head.

—

_February 10_ _ th _ _.She remembers it like it was yesterday._

Does she?

_She remembers the walkway, anyway.Joker smiling at her in that way that - never happened.She knows that now.She remembers the hiss of the acid far below.She remembers the coat she was wearing, and the shoes -_

_Something about the shoes -_

_February 10_ _ th _ _, though.That’s right, isn’t it?_

So why was she wearing summer shoes?

_Because you’re fucking crazy, she thinks._

But she was Harleen back then, and Harleen was sane _._

_That isn’t quite right, but close enough._

_So why…_

_The harvest moon.It’s incredibly annoying that she remembers that phrase, and the big white circle of it in the sky over… Arkham?Over the gates.Chill in the air and a gloved hand on her shoulder and the feeling that something is missing._

_Cold air.Rustle of leaves gone orange-gold and about to fall._

_October._

—

“Shit,” Harley said when she woke up, “I just remembered.”Then she glanced around.“Um, where the hell am I?”

“Corner of Main and 15th,” Ivy said.Harley twisted her neck and saw her roommate floating high above the street, her lower half wrapped in the vines that were carrying them both along.Harley recognized the sleek, muscular feel of Ivy’s favorite transportation around her own body, one oversized flower cradling the back of her head so her neck didn’t get stiff while she was unconscious.Ivy was always considerate like that.

“What happened?” she asked.

“You ran into some trouble on your heist.”Ivy had that obnoxious, know-it-all smugness in her voice, but she still smiled.“I happened to be in the neighborhood.Do you want to stop for sushi on the way home?”One of the vines swung in her direction, a canvas bag full of odd bulges in its grip.“I grabbed your bag of loot, so you can afford your half.”

Harley hadn’t had time to grab any loot, which meant Ivy had done the looting for her and was being nice enough not to say so.She probably should have been upset about that, but it wasn't like the Legion was going to find out.And heists were boring.“Sure,” she said.“You pay and when I sell the crap I’ll get you back for both of us.Donate the rest to the rainforest or something.”Ivy looked pleased.Harley leaned back, her head throbbing, then remembered.“Oh, did you go by the giftshop?”

“Cleared the place out.”

“Good, good.Frank will be happy.”She watched the smoggy Gotham sky pass overhead as they traveled.They were on darker roads now, so even though they were two obvious supervillians being carried along by giant semi-sentient plants, the Gotham PD was ignoring them.“I had a weird thought, while I was unconscious,” she said.

“Aren’t they all?”Ivy’s attention was on her phone, putting in their takeout order.“Sometimes I dream about being chased by pesticide cans.”

“It wasn’t that kind of thought.Not a dream.I just remembered something.”Harley paused.“I’m not British.”

“Was that in doubt?” Ivy asked.“Because I don’t know if you’ve heard your own accent, but - “

Harley had practiced her accent in the mirror, back in med school.Trying to tone it down, to sound smarter, more sophisticated, less like a mook’s daughter from fucking Bensonhurst.She’d gone back to her old accent because Joker liked it, liked the story of little Harleen who’d beaten the shit out of her own dad on live TV and been shamed out of competitive gymnastics as a “Jersey Shore reject”, but New Harley used Dr. Quinzel’s accent.Maybe she should have tried something different.Maybe she _should_ have tried being British.

But, no.She liked sounding like Dr. Quinzel.It made her remember - well, anyway.She liked it.

“I mean, only British people put the date before the month,” Harley said.“My tattoo.It’s not February 10th.It’s October 2nd.”Kind of obvious.Like someone leaving a clue.

There was a disturbing thought, or what would be disturbing for someone who didn’t have regular conversations with her photographs of her old self.

“Oh.”A pause.“But I thought that was the date - “

“Yeah, but it’s not.”Harley groaned.“Just something else about my life I don’t remember right.”

There was a longer pause this time, and then Ivy said, sounding reluctant, “So what happened on October 2nd?”

“Fucking wish I knew,” Harley said.“But I’m gonna find out.”

—

“And aren’t you a handsome young man!” The silver-haired matron, part of a whole flock of older Gotham heiresses who made up the majority of guests at parties like these, beamed down at Damian.“And how do you do in school?Are you a good student?Not too much of a playboy like your father, I hope?”She flashed the kind of flirtatious look that older woman could get away with.

“I’m twelve,” Damian said flatly.

Bruce gave the woman his most charming smile in return.She wasn’t important enough that her taking offense would threaten the Wayne Foundation’s charity events, but it didn’t hurt to keep her happy, and playing the part of Bruce Wayne, Reformed-Playboy-Turned-Charity-Patron-and-Endearing-Single-Dad, was easy enough.As the costumes he wore went, it barely rated.

“Damian’s a good kid,” he said.“Just a little shy.He’s not used to events like these.”He clamped a hand down on his son’s shoulders, a clear warning not to contradict that.“I’m sure he’ll feel more comfortable as he attends more.”

“And we all look forward to that!”The woman actually winked.“Can’t wait to see if you grow up to be a charmer like your brother.”Her eyes drifted across the ballroom to where Dick was holding court with a whole gaggle of women just like her, a grin on his face and them all practically swooning at his feet.

Bruce coughed loudly to cover Damian’s snort in response.

“Sorry, tickle,” he said.“Well, it was nice to see you again, Mrs. Ramsey, but we really have to get back to mingling.”He softened the dismissal with another practiced smile and quickly steered Damian away.

To his credit, his son waited until they were out of earshot before fixing Bruce with a look that creepily reminded him of himself, even when it came from several feet down.“I am _not_ shy,” he said.

“Not at all,” Bruce agreed, pausing to take a glass of sparkling wine from a passing waiter.He’d planted them throughout the event; a man enjoying a gathering like this had to be seen drinking, but the Batman needed to be sober later tonight. 

It was the balancing of all the roles, all the stories, that was the difficult part, he sometimes thought a little wistfully.And then he would think, it would be nice, for a change, to just be one person.To just be the Batman, the one who was both most a costume and most _him_.

But that wouldn’t be so good for others, he reminded himself, his attention drawn again to Damian.“Getting used to events like these is important,” he said.This had been easier with Dick, who was naturally outgoing, and who also cared about things like social causes and community and interacting with other human beings.For a brief moment, he remembered leading another surly, reluctant boy through a room like this before he firmly locked that thought away. “It’s part of your duty as a member of this family.”

“This is duty?”Damian waved his hands at the crowds of glittering socialites and their even wealthier parents.“A _party_?”

“A party to raise money which helps to find homes for orphans in the city,” Bruce reminded him sternly.A cause that, unfortunately, never stopped requiring new resources in a place like Gotham.

Damian opened his mouth, but luckily they’d caught up to Dick and the woman he was now talking to, so Bruce didn’t have to hear his response.

“Bruce!” Dick said cheerfully, then reached out to pat Damian’s head.“Brat.”Bruce marveled that he didn’t lose the hand.He was pretty sure Damian had at least one batarang hidden in his new suit, though he’d been forbidden to bring weapons to the party.Bruce was trying to walk the line between guiding Damian and controlling him.Alfred had given a very eloquent look when he’d said as much.

“I was just talking to one of our special guests,” Dick said, ignoring his brother’s glare.“This is Delia.”

The woman Dick had been entertaining was in her mid-thirties, nearly-natural blonde, dressed well but not as expensively as most of the guests.She also wore a much more sincere smile than most as she shook his hand.“We’ve actually met, though it’s been a few years,” she said.“I adopted my daughter thanks to the Foundation’s work.”She hesitated only slightly, the kind of pause a real careless rich guy who’d had a few would probably miss.“You probably meet so many people, I doubt you remember me.”

“It’s wonderful to see you,” Bruce said, leaving the question unanswered.Billionaire Bruce Wayne would, indeed, not remember this woman.“It’s great when we see people who have benefited from the Foundation.I hope your daughter is well.”

“She’s doing wonderfully.She’s three now.Considering all she went through…”

Bruce nodded, molding his face into an expression that was serious enough to show sympathy for a traumatic childhood but not enough to indicate interest in hearing more about it.This was a party, after all.

Dick, apparently, didn’t catch on - or, Bruce thought wryly, perhaps he did and just didn’t care.Since becoming Nightwing, Dick had his own agenda more often than not.Alfred had assured Bruce that this was a normal part of growing up, which made Bruce marvel that Alfred thought anything about his relationship with his children should be normal.

“Delia was just saying that she wished there was a way to track down more of her daughter’s history, and I thought maybe the Wayne Foundation could help,” Dick said brightly.There was much less of a line between Dick’s public persona and his actual personality.“The files she was given didn’t have much information.”

“Just genetic information, you know,” Delia added quickly.“Medical histories, that sort of thing.I don’t have any interest in any sort of… relationship, with whoever my daughter might have come from.It’s just, I want to be prepared, in case - ”

“I’m afraid the Foundation doesn’t have access to that sort of thing,” Bruce said smoothly.The orphans the Foundation helped were mostly from families who had been the victims of attacks by supervillains.Some of them might have been exposed to Joker serum or the Scarecrow’s fear gas, so Delia’s concern could be warranted. 

Before she could ask for more information, Bruce’s phone buzzed.“Excuse me,” he said, and slipped it out, catching a glimpse of the message from Alfred.“I’m afraid I have another commitment to get to tonight,” he said.He shook Delia’s hand.“Boys, I’ll see you later.”He gave Damian a pointed look, Dick a less meaningful one, then slipped away and headed for the door.

From one costume to another.For him and his sons.

***

Nightwing landed on the roof of the Gotham Court House just seconds behind Batman and Robin.“What are we looking at, B?” he asked.

Robin frowned up at him, his small face scrunched up in disapproval behind his domino mask.It weirded Nightwing out to see him like this, a tiny figure in Jason’s old costume, but with Bruce’s features and serious expressions.Almost as strange as seeing Damian in that mini tux back at the party.

“You should show more respect,” Robin said.

“Aw, what fun would that be?”

Robin growled, a weirdly intense sound in a twelve-year old.Bruce said, “Boys.”

“Sorry.”Nightwing went to stand beside him, looking down through the skylight into the courthouse lobby below.It was strange how many Gotham buildings had rooftop entrances, considering the traffic above street-level in this city.Maybe Bruce bribed the local architecture firms.“It doesn’t look like the break in happened here.”He could hear the distant alarms and see the flashing lights that had alerted the PD and Batman’s surveillance systems, but the skylight itself was intact.

“No,” Batman said.“She broke in the front door.”He removed a tool from his belt and began unlocking the glass. 

Nightwing went to the edge of the building and looked down.Sure enough, he could see shattered glass and a door hanging off its hinges.“Huh,” he said, then turned back to Batman.“Wait, she?A woman?”

“Your powers of observation are incredible,” Robin said.

“She,” Batman agreed, already lowering himself down through the skylight.Robin followed. 

Apparently no more information would be forthcoming.Nightwing sighed.“When he gets all monosyllabic like this, that’s when I miss working with Kid Flash,” he muttered, then hooked his own grappling line to the roof and dropped down after his fellow vigilantes.

The lobby was empty.The three heroes did a quick search of the check-in desks and the front offices, but there was no sign of robbery.Batman took the lead as they worked their way back through the building, getting into the warren of beige-colored offices where the city employees spent their days.They split up without a word, each taking a different room, clearing it of suspects before they moved onto the next.Nightwing moved silently on his toes, batarang in hand and senses on alert.Just because this seemed like a low-risk adventure didn’t mean someone couldn’t jump out of the shadows.

He wasn’t sure what alerted him that Batman had found something - just his training, maybe, picking up on some quiet change in the atmosphere.Whatever it was, he moved cautiously, catching up to Robin at the entrance to a storage room and setting his hand on his little brother’s shoulder before he could step through the door.“Shh, wait,” he said.“Something’s in there.”

“I know that,” Robin said, rolling his eyes, but he looked embarrassed. 

Nightwing pressed his back to the wall, counted to three, and ducked around - then paused.“Is that the Joker’s girlfriend?” he hissed over his shoulder.

“Seriously?”Robin gave him the kind of _you’re-an-idiot_ look that only a twelve-year old could manage.

“Yeah.I mean, I think it’s her.”Nightwing took another peek, focusing in on the woman who was facing off with Batman, both of them at the ready but not actively punching each other yet.“That’s her color scheme.Hair’s different from the last time I saw her, though.And her costume is less - well.Less.”She was in a combat stance, though; he’d always been surprised that the shrieky mini-clown was such a skilled fighter.“Is that a baseball bat?”

“Yes, that’s her signature weapon.”Robin gave a put-upon sigh.“She’s not the Joker’s girlfriend anymore, though.She’s gone out on her own.She’s making a name for herself, and - I mean.I’ve heard.”

Nightwing narrowed his eyes.“Do you have a crush on the Joker’s girlfriend?”

“I told you, she’s not - oh shut up.”

He grinned.“Cute.”

“I am _not_ \- “

“Alright, so, we should probably give Bats a hand.”Though it really didn’t look like B needed any help.He and Harley Quinn were still talking.As the boys watched, Batman raised his voice. 

“This is breaking and entering, Quinn,” he said.

“The fuck business is it of yours?” Harley yelled.Her voice was no less grating than it had been when she was the Joker’s side-kick, though her accent seemed less thick.“I’m a goddamn citizen of this goddamn city, and I have - “

“Get out.”Batman moved in a flourish of his cape, too fast for Harley to react.Nightwing had always been impressed with her agility - not to mention her willingness to just go to town when it came to hand-to-hand-combat - but she was no match for B.In seconds, he had her pinned by the arms.Nightwing stepped into the room, Robin on his heels. 

“Harley,” he said cheerfully.“Been a while.”

“Ugh, the bat-brats are here.”The pale blonde squirmed in Batman’s grip.“Let me go!”Her voice rose on the last word to decibels that would make a dog cry.

And Batman did.

Well, no, Nightwing guessed technically Harley broke free.Except that Nightwing had never seen any villain, once captured, escape Batman’s hold.But one moment Harley was kicking futiley at Batman’s legs, screaming and thrashing around, and the next she twisted free with gymnastic grace and dove for the door.Nightwing was so astonished that he just stared as she somersaulted past him and disappeared into the hallway.

“What the heck?” he muttered when she was gone.

“We have to catch her!”Robin took off in pursuit, but froze when Batman called him back with a word.“But Father!She’s a criminal, and she’s escaping!She broke into this building and stole - “

“She didn’t steal anything.”Batman looked down at the scattered files on the floor.“And she didn’t get what she was looking for.”

There was something tired in his voice that Nightwing recognized but had never been allowed to understand.He took a step closer.“What was she looking for?” he asked.“Are these public records?Is looking at public records even a crime?”

“Smashing through the front door is,” Robin insisted, which, okay, fair.

Batman straightened, and the little hints of Bruce - not the Bruce Wayne costume, but the real man who Nightwing was only sometimes sure actually existed - vanished behind the Bat.“Let’s go,” he said gruffly, and stalked towards the door.

Robin followed, but Nightwing paused, crouching down to pick up one of the discarded files.It was - a series of random death certificates?“October 2nd,” he noted.What had Harley been looking for?

On the rooftop, Batman had already swung away, but Robin was just casting his line.“That was weird, right?” Nightwing said as he stepped up beside him.

“That Father let a criminal go free?”Robin sounded outraged.“Of course it was strange. I think she must have used some kind of chemical mind-control on him.I’m going to steal a blood sample tonight and have Alfred run tests.” 

“Not that,” Nightwing said, though the image of Damian following Bruce around the mansion all night, trying to find an opportunity to jab him with a syringe, was amusing.“That he was so adamant that she not find whatever she was looking for.”

Robin stared at him blankly.“The Batman doesn’t let criminals go free,” he said, like it was a law of nature, and nothing else was worth mentioning.He launched himself from the roof still muttering about chemical agents.

“No, he doesn’t,” Nightwing thought.He wondered if Damian had ever seen a part of their father that wasn’t the Bat.

—

The mask is slipping.The costume is frayed.This story isn’t going to hold.

_“I’ll take care of - “ But the shadow man’s voice and face still aren’t clear.Like she can only understand him at all if she doesn’t try to really listen.His image keeps shifting dizzily, his voice a mix of a million voices, Joker and her father and Bobby all tossed together._

_“I know you will.”That’s her voice, sounds just like her mother’s, because men think it’s cute, because only a sweet girl who wants to marry a nice doctor and certainly never dreams of sticking a fork in a date’s eye when he gets handsy can sound like that.“And it’s not like I have a choice, is it?”_

_“Harley - “_

_“Don’t.”She tries to move but she can’t.Restraints.Is she in Arkham already?They used restraints on her all the time, and each time she only fought harder.“But do me a favor.”_

_“What is it?”_

_No, they’re outside Arkham.In the cold, with the dry leaves stirring around their feet.Autumn wind.Harley can feel it tugging at her stupid clown’s hood.Shadows stir around the man, but there’s more than that.There’s something wrong with his face._

_Not a face.A mask._

_“Her name.I want her to keep that much.”_

—-

She woke up with the name on her lips, but it was gone before she even opened her eyes.

“This is really irritating,” she informed the cracked roof of Ivy’s apartment.Sy needed to get someone in before they had a leak.“I liked it a lot better when my dreams were just me an’ Uma Thurman slicing up those guys from Kill Bill.”

She’d never liked dream psychology.Not because it was barely a science, laughed at by most of her fellow students as mystical mumbo-jumbo.They’d joke about how dreams were just random images and symbols, none of it meaningful, and Harley would think that not one of them knew that the waking world was no more reliable than your dreams.It was all just what you made it be.Harley hated thinking about dreams.They reminded her too much of the elaborate fantasies her brain wove, the ones that were brighter and more beautiful than anything the real world held, and the disappointment that always followed when she realized they couldn’t be true.

The way this dream shifted and resettled itself, it reminded her of that time she’d fallen into Ivy’s margarita-mix chemical vat and been forced to see how the Joker really felt about her.

“Classic case of abusive co-dependency,” she quoted herself.“I understand that one.But why am I lying to myself about this dream?”

The ceiling had no answers, so eventually Harley dragged herself out of bed and went looking for a vat of coffee.

Ivy was on the couch, her feet up on the new coffee table and watching the new TV while one of the houseplants brushed her hair and another gave her a manicure.“Morning, Harls,” she called, even though Harley could see from the wall of east-facing windows that it was almost sunset.“So, want to hear something weird?Apparently someone broke into the Riddler’s place last night.”

Harley dumped half the sugar bowl into the dregs from the coffee machine and chugged.“What’d they get?His toupee collection?”

Ivy snorted.“The news isn’t saying.But that’s not the weird part.”

—

“Sir, if I might remind you.Your mission, as you’ve so often explained it to me, at great and frankly unnecessary length, is to protect the citizens of Gotham from crime, yes?”Batman, most of his attention still on the computer screen in the cave, tilted his head in his butler’s direction and grunted.“Very well.Then might I suggest that as the Penguin is himself a criminal, perhaps protecting _him_ from crime is, ah, contradictory?That is, if someone has committed a crime against him, we might even call that justice. Finish your tea.”

Batman grunted again, but picked up the delicate china cup, a family heirloom, and sipped.He’d mentioned to Alfred before that he didn’t like having Wayne heirlooms in the cave; it blurred the lines.Alfred had chosen to ignore him, probably for that exact reason.The tea was delicious, though.Alfred made it stronger than most coffee.

“I’m not worried about justice for the Penguin,” he said, gloved fingers flying over the keys.“I’m interested in what was taken by the person who broke into his lair.”

“What _was_ taken?”Alfred sounded reluctantly curious.

—

“Penguin _and_ Riddler both had break-ins?” 

“I know, right?”Ivy shook her head.“For guys who call themselves the Legion of Doom, I have to say, they don’t seem to be striking fear into many hearts.This is why I keep telling you, you’re better than these guys.I totally bet those security guards you took down last week wouldn’t dare break into your place.”She paused.“You know, if you had a place.”

“And if they could still walk,” Frank added helpfully.

“It’s not civilians.”Harley crossed her arms and glared at the TV.Sudden, old rage beat in her blood, and after the eerie, unsettling feel of the dream, and her screwed-up heist, and her pointless trip through the records of every October 2nd death in the last ten years, she welcomed it.“This is someone fucking with the goddamn Legion.” 

“Uh… okay?Isn’t that what you want?”Harley glared at her roommate, who raised her hands in surrender.“I’m just saying, I thought you hated those guys because they won’t let you in their stupid little boys club?”

“I do.”Harley snatched up her bat.“And I hate whatever nasty little asshole is punking them!That’s my job.” 

This was something bright and clear and clean - someone trying to push her aside, dismiss her, take her place.Something familiar.Something that belonged squarely to New Harley, with no old sidekick-Harley or sane Dr. Quinzel or dumb, hopeful Harleen-from-Bensonhurst to muddy it up.She raised her weapon, gripping it tight.

“Please don’t break the TV.”

“Argh!”Harley smashed the bat against the floor, equal parts relieved and disappointed when that did no actual harm.“I’m not going to stand for it.”

Ivy sighed, but it was her sigh of reluctant affection, not the one she used when she was second guessing breaking Harley out of Arkham in the first place, so that was okay.“What are you going to do?”

When she was enraged like this, it was as though her whole brain lit up, like when she would snort cocaine before finals.“Whoever this is, they’re going after the Legion’s heavy-hitters.Penguin, Riddler… Scarecrow will be next.”

“Not Bane?”

“He lives in a pit.How do you break into a pit?”

“Point to Harley,” Frank said.

“So I need to get there first.”She raised the bat again.“And then I’ll SHOW THEM just who FUCKS with the LEGION.THAT’S ME!”

“Yeah,” Ivy said.“We got that part.”

__

“I don’t understand.”Robin’s voice might have been called plaintive on any other young boy.“You tested negative for all known mind-control elements - “

“I told you, I’m impervious to mind control - “

“- and yet, for the second night in a row, we are allowing a criminal to go about their crime unimpeded.Please, Father, I just want to understand.”

It was the “Father” that almost did him in.Dick always called him “B” on the job, and yes, the point was that it could be short for Bruce or for Batman, but it toed the line of maintaining the separation between the two.Nightwing, however reluctant he might be about some elements of their lifestyle, understood the need for symbols and masks.Damian treated his costume like uniform, with great respect, but he didn’t understand that he couldn’t be the Batman’s son the way he was Bruce’s.He had to be Robin, like Dick had been Robin.Like -

It was ironic, because of all his children, Damian understood the Bat the most.His current bad mood had come about because Batman wasn’t playing by the rules that Robin thought should govern their behavior.Batman and Robin stopped criminals, end of story.He should be pleased, he thought wearily, to finally have a Robin who wanted him to be a symbol more than a man, who maybe even wanted the same thing for himself.

“We’re watching for her,” Batman said, readying his grappling hook.

The first break-in at the Scarecrow’s compound had begun twenty minutes earlier.A single figure, dressed all in black and with a hood pulled up to hide their face, had picked the lock on a janitor’s entrance.Same M.O. as the night before.Batman had been content to let them take what they wanted and apprehend them, if it proved necessary, on the way back out.It wasn’t as though he was terribly worried about the theft of Jonathan Crane’s private property, except for the danger it might prove in the wrong hands.

The second criminal arrival of the night was a different story.

“Her again?”Robin got to his feet, eyes eager as he looked down at the slender figure flipping her way through the shadows with an unnecessary amount of cartwheeling, white skin glowing in the dim light.“Let’s go!”He paused when Batman didn’t move.“We are going to stop her this time, right?”

“I am.I need you to watch for the other one.See where they go.”

“But - “

“That’s an order, Robin.”His s - Robin understood orders.

The door to Scarecrow’s compound opened just as Harley Quinn approached it, and as Batman swung down from the roof he saw her encounter the fleeing thief.There was a brief argument that devolved, typically for Harley, into violence.By the time he reached the street, Harley was on the ground, wrestling with the hooded figure, spitting and clawing like a cat as they fought over some small item.

“Harley!” he roared, and the two figures froze.

“Oh, fucking come on!” Harley yelled.She bashed her bat one last time over her opponent’s head, sending the other figure staggering back, before Batman grabbed her arm and twisted, putting her in a headlock.“We’re both criminals!What the hell do you care if we kill each other?”

The hooded figure stumbled to their feet, pausing like they was about to jump back into the fight.Batman gave them a look, and with a last pause, they ran off into the darkness.

“Oh, sure, and she’s the one who gets to go?Playing favorites, Bats?”

“Because she’s not the one who belongs in Arkham.”The “she” had been just a guess, but he supposed Harley had gotten close enough in their grappling to confirm it.

“That’s fucking discrimination.You’re just pissed because I told all the goons and henches in Gotham that you fu-””

“Harley.”With a twist, Batman swung her around, pinning her to a wall with her feet dangling from the ground.He pitched his voice for her ears only, distantly aware that Robin might not be on the trail of the fleeing thief after all.“I need you to listen to me.”

It was probably a lost cause, he thought; in five years of a criminal career, Harley had rarely listened to him.But rarely wasn’t never.

Harley squirmed and struggled like she had the night before in the courthouse, kicking at his legs, swears on her tongue.Her pale eyes had the wild look he’d seen every time he’d dragged her off to Arkham, a woman so consumed with rage towards the entire world that she would never figure out how to direct it in any productive way. 

Except for once, when he’d stopped with her outside Arkham’s gates.

“Harley,” he said again.“I need you to trust me.”

Harley froze, her starkly pale face going blank, and when she raised her eyes to his, there was a dazed look there.“What?” she asked.

“I need you to listen,” he said again, tightening his grip to hold her in place, eyes locked on him.“This thing you are looking into, you need to stop.No more going through public records, no more tracking people looking into the Legion.”

“But tonight - I wasn’t - “

“You don’t want to follow this path,” he went on implacably.“You don’t want to understand.I can’t help you if you don’t let this go.”

“Help me…” she said softly, and for a minute he thought it was a request.Then she shook her head.“How, by sending me back to -“She gasped.“It was you.”

“Harley - “

“No.”With a swift kick, she spun them around, and Batman had to let her go to keep from hurting her.

And why was that such an issue?Certainly they’d fought enough times.He doubted he’d ever returned her to Arkham without a few bruises and cuts, at least.There was no other way with someone as unwilling to back down as Harley.

But there had been that one night.

“You were there,” she hissed.The mad look was back in her eyes.“Something was missing after that night, and you aren’t going to fucking keep it from me! I’m going to find out what you stole and when I do, I am going to come back, and kick your ass, and steal it right back!”

He thought of Robin, somewhere high above them.He thought of the boy who’d worn his costume first, and the man who’d given Harley _her_ first costume, and how tangled loyalties became when you forgot to keep things black and white.To keep the masks on.

“I understand,” he said.Maybe she could hear that he meant it.“But Harley.This isn’t what you want.”

“You know nothing about what I want,” she snapped, and turned away.For the second time in two nights, he let her run off.

—

“This… is a glass.”Ivy turned it in one green-hued hand.“Not even a very nice one.I think I saw these things on sale ten for ten at Walmart.”She shook her head.“Why would someone break into Scarecrow’s lair to steal this?”

“I have no freakin idea!I just grabbed it out of her hand on instinct.I didn’t realize what it was until I got back here.”Harley slumped on the couch.“And I don’t know why the bat-fucker was so upset about it either.” 

_You don’t want to understand._

Harley shivered.She’d gone after the person breaking into the Legion’s lairs because it was a lark, because it seemed like the kind of thing New Harley would do, taking out the competition.That Batman had connected it to her futile search for records of October 2nd creeped her out.Like there was some clue here she was missing.

“Aw, what’s wrong, Harley?You cold?”Frank came sliding over the edge of the couch to wrap a vine around her shoulders.“Do you think maybe it’s because you go around in hot pants and a halter in Novem - “

“Shut up, Frank.”Ivy’s voice softened.“But what is wrong, Harls?”

It almost made her smile.Ivy talked such a good game about being aloof and detached from humans, but she was perceptive when it came to other people’s emotions.She just didn’t want anyone to notice.If she hadn’t hated everyone so much, she would have made a good psychiatrist.

Too bad Harley was _her_ former shrink, and it wasn’t like she’d lost her training along with her sanity and her melanin.

“It’s just… Bats said something weird to me today,” she admitted.“And then I remembered…”She paused. 

“Remembered what?”

Harley knew how her mind worked.That was the curse of dealing with your childhood trauma and undiagnosed mental illnesses by going into med school debt to learn how to treat _other_ people.She’d been a brilliant psychiatrist once, and that skill had worked on herself as well as on any of her patients.None of the halfwits who’d taken on her case at Arkham had ever had half the grasp of her mind that Harley had herself.

_Delusional.Unstable.Prone to violence when she doesn’t get her way._ She’d seen all the things they’d written in her charts.

That wasn’t it, though.Well, maybe the violence thing.But… it was just easier, wasn’t it?Safer.To make a version of the world that fit better with how it should be, to protect herself by remembering things that hadn’t ever happened instead of the ones that had.Become the clown, the harlequin.Paint pictures in technicolor and shunt the real memories away into the darkest, most shadowy corners of her psyche.

The kind of corners where a bat might live.

“Can I ask you something?” she asked.

“Is it whether we can order from Chick-fil-a again?Because the answer is no.I can only compromise my moral beliefs once a week, tops, and that place is a homophobic, animal-torturing twofer.”

“You know you like their fries, but no.”Harley got up from the couch and followed her roommate into the kitchen, perching on a stool.“Ive, you were in Arkham every time with me, right?”

“I think so.”Ivy frowned thoughtfully.“Actually, I think I was always in before you.Why?”

“Do you remember how many times I was there?”

Her friend’s eyebrows shot up.“Weird question, but okay.It was… three, I think?Yeah, three.The first time, after you broke Joker out and he ditched you a week later.Then the second after you guys stole that laser from Wayne Tech and he let you take the fall.And then the third time last year after that boat incident where Joker - “

“Yeah, ok, those aren’t the details I’m looking for.”Harley chewed on a hangnail.“So no other time?”

“Harls.”Ivy put a hand on hers, tugging it away from her mouth.“That’s disgusting, and Frank spent a lot of time on your nails.Now what are you looking for here?”

“Batman brought me in every time.”That was part of the story.Harley and the Joker versus the Dark Knight.“He was always such an asshole about it.Calling me psycho, beating the shit out of me, saying I was getting thrown in a cell where I belonged.His little brats always kicking me when I was down.But recently I’ve been having these dreams, and I think they’re about Batman being… nice.”

“Nice?”Ivy’s disbelief was clear.

“For him? Sort of?We’re standing outside Arkham, and he’s going to put me away, but he’s being kind.He tells me it’s going to be okay and he’s going to take care of…”It was only because she was looking right at Ivy, and because long before they were friends she’d once contemplated writing a paper about this woman and so she’d paid more attention to her than most patients, but she saw the flicker on Ivy’s expression.“What is it?”

“Nothing.”Ivy turned around and grabbed a random mug off the counter, taking it to the sink and beginning to scrub it.She was a terrible liar, Harley thought.A real disadvantage of spending all her time around plants, who even when sentient couldn’t read human facial expressions.

“ _Ive_.Do you remember something I don’t?”

“How would I remember something about you and Batman?Was I even there, in this memory?”

“No, but it was Arkham.I always went straight to you as soon as I got put back in that shithole.You were the only thing that made it livable.”She could see the tension in Ivy’s shoulders.She slid off the stool and circled around to the sink, gripping it so tight it her fingers hurt.“Ivy, please.What am I not remembering?”

Up close, she could see that Ivy had her eyes closed.Her fingers stilled in her scrubbing.“Harley…”

“Come on, Ivy, you’re the one person I trust.”

Her friend sighed.“Not with this, I’m not.”

“What do you mean?”

Ivy opened her eyes slowly.“Look, Harls, it’s not that I don’t want to tell you.But I can’t.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because you asked me not to.”

“What?”But of course that made sense.Of course, if someone was undermining Harley, it was always going to _be_ Harley.“I’m asking you now.”

Ivy stared at her for a long minute, then shrugged, turning back to her cleaning.“Alright.I don’t even know why it was so important.But there was one time when you left.”

“I escaped?” 

Ivy rolled her eyes.“No, you were always waiting on Joker for that.No, someone came and got you.A doctor or something.Supposedly you had an appointment.And then you came back later, and you seemed sad.I asked what happened and you told me it didn’t matter, that you weren’t going to remember anyway.You were… upset, about it.So I said - ”Ivy squirmed, uncomfortable with acknowledging her own sentimentality.“I said I would remind you, if you told me.And you said _don’t_.”She finished scrubbing the world’s cleanest mug and set it aside, turning to face Harley.Harley felt oddly small when her friend set her hands on her shoulders.“And that was it, Harls.You never told me anything else.”

“Oh.”

They stood there for a long moment.For once Frank was quiet, and the plants weren’t moving around, and Ivy wasn’t speaking.There was no noise except what was inside Harley’s own head, and that was all white static.

She shook Ivy’s hands off her shoulders and picked up her bat.“Okay.Thanks,” she said.

“Where are you going?”Distantly, Ivy sounded worried.

Harley paused by the door.“I’m going - the thief.The cup-stealer.They - probably Joker’s next on their list?I don’t know, it seems like they’ll strike there, so - “That’s what she _should_ do.What New Harley would do.Focus on the current goal, taking down this upstart who wanted to steal her place as a thorn in the Legion’s side.Forget all this shadowy dream crap.None of that mattered.She knew who she was now.She’d made herself this person.

“I’m going out,” she said finally, and slammed the door behind her.

—

“Well, she was in a fucking mood,” Frank noted once Harley was gone. 

“Yeah.”Ivy eyed the door warily, but Harley didn’t come slamming back through, ready to go on a tear or smash up more of Ivy’s furniture for funsies.Ivy thought she might have been relieved if she had; Harley quiet and confused and lost like that was creepy.Even when she was wasting herself on the Joker she’d been bright and loud, all chaos.

“You going after her?”Ivy raised an eyebrow at her flytrap, who made a weirdly human shrug.“You always go after her,” he pointed out.“Harley goes off to do something stupid, you say you aren’t going, but then you ‘coincidentally’ turn up in the same neighborhood - “

“Shut up, Frank.”Ivy went to get her jacket.

In the living room, she paused, picking up the stolen glass from the coffee table.She raised it to her eye, careful not to touch the rim as she examined it.It wasn’t very clean; there were smudges around the edges.

The thing about Harley was, she was brilliant, but she mostly cared about the human mind, and that was barely a science.Ivy was another story.She understood why someone might want to steal a used and unwashed drinking glass.

But why would anyone want the Scarecrow’s DNA?

—

Someone was stealing household items from the lairs of Gotham’s supervillains and running DNA, and the inevitably, the Joker was going to be next.

Well, that was a guess.But Batman’s guesses were as good as fact.

He deleted the message from Alfred, who had picked up the alert about the test as soon as it was submitted, and went back to surveilling the street below.It was a nicer neighborhood than he usually got to be in, at least in this costume.Not nice enough for Bruce, really.Just an ordinary place, full of offices and restaurants and people rushing home at the end of the day. 

And one man in a bat costume, hovering in the dark, watching over them.

And one half-mad clown, seriously underdressed for the weather, who let out a swear as she landed on the roof beside him.

“You have a car, Bats,” Harley complained as she got to her feet.“You could creep on people from the car.Which has heat.I know I’d appreciate it.”She rubbed her bare arms, scowling.

“I didn’t invite you.”Batman stood up; he wasn’t about to give up this perfect vantage point, but he could pretend.“Go home, Harley.”

“No.I told you, I want what you stole from me.I remember.You took me back to Arkham and something was missing.What was it?”

Unconsciously, he’d been using something other than the growl he usually preferred for criminals; not Bruce’s voice, never that in the suit, but closer to the voice he reserved for talking to the Robins.Now he let it drop an octave, low and threatening.“I’m not a thief, Quinn.”

“Yeah?How many of my favorite mallets did you snatch all those times you took me in?That’s a lie as much as me being a supervillain.” 

The mournful note in her voice caught him off-guard - for a minute, he could picture Dick laughing at him, Batman struck by the urge to comfort Harley Quinn - and so he hesitated before saying.“Those were evidence.”

“Hmm, sure.And my memories?”

He turned slowly to face her. 

He knew he was standing in the shadows, nothing visible but the strip of skin around his mouth.He’d had more than a decade to practice keeping himself hidden in the night.Harley, in contrast, stood out brightly, all pale skin and hair, too-wide eyes.She’d never been one to blend, with shadows or anything else. 

That’s what had made it so easy.No one would look for something Harley Quinn was hiding.

He knew he wasn’t giving anything away, in his body language or his face - he never did, and he was extra-careful around her, because Harley had been brilliant once when it came to people - but she smiled anyway.It wasn’t her usual manic grin; she looked angry, and sad, and bitterly triumphant.“That’s it, isn’t it,” she said.“I was right.You stole my memories.”

“No.”

“Shut up!”Her voice shot up into its customary shriek, but only for a moment.“Don’t lie to me.I know you - “

“Harley,” he said again, firmly. _“I’m not a thief.”_ She blinked, confused - she knew how to spot a lie - and he added, “And memory manipulation isn’t a science.It rarely works well.It’s just, that some people - “

She sucked in a breath.“Some people are more susceptible.”

__

_“Memory manipulation is bullshit.It ain’t a science.But some people, it works on them.They’re more susceptible.”_

They were his ideas, but it was her voice she heard.Her old voice, accent think, little uptick at the end of each sentence.The cutesy clown who no one took seriously until she made them bleed. 

_“It’s too dangerous.”_

_“More dangerous than every time you put that Kevlar fist through someone’s face?More dangerous than keeping us in Arkham?Dontcha tell me you’re all concerned for my well-being now?”_

Underground, somewhere, but with light.The bells on her harlequin’s hood jingled when she moved.

_“If we tried this -_

_“It’s the only way to make sure I don’t tell hi- anyone.Don’t worry, Bats.I consent.There’s no ethical conflict.”She could tell she’d won him over, and it made her laugh.“And hey, you could even show me what’s under the mask first.It’s not like I’ll ever remember.”_

“You stole my memories because I asked you to,” she said numbly.

He didn’t move, didn’t give any response.

“You took them away, and then you took me back to Arkham.But you felt bad.You were… nice to me.”She glared up at him.“Why were you nice, Bats?”

“Go home, Harley.”

She was about to fling herself across the roof and grab him, punch him, make him listen.Make him not brush her off and dismiss her as crazy-Harley-Quinn.But at that moment, a woman screamed from the street below, and he moved like a shadow, grappling hook cast, and disappeared from the roof.

“Goddamnit, you are not getting away with running off on me!” Harley yelled, and went after him.

Jumping off the roof was, as it turned out, not the smartest decision.Luckily there was a balcony two stories down, and she only got a little banged up.But from there she had to find enough hand-and-footholds to make it to the street, cursing that she’d spent so much time on floor routines and uneven bars and not nearly enough on rock-climbing, and by the time she caught up with him, Batman was in the middle of a fight with a bunch of goons, a terrified civilian woman huddling behind him.

They were Joker’s goons, which just felt typical.Just a fucking sign. 

He was impressive to watch in a fight, when you weren’t the one getting punched and kicked; Harley could begrudgingly give him that.Without really intending to, she found herself stopping, mesmerized by another athlete’s brutal performance.He worked that cape, too, using it to confuse his opponents as it swept around him, obscuring his movements.Harley grinned to herself as she watched, like a performer at a show, and it took her a minute to realize he was trying to get her attention.

“Harley!” he roared, and she jumped.

“What do you want?” she yelled back.

He swung around, taking another goon out with a high kick that would have made her old gymnastics judges weep, then pointed down the street.“The kid!”

Behind him, the woman screamed.

Harley turned, and down the block, right under a pool of streetlight, there stood a child.An actual fucking kid, little blonde girl, bizarrely out of place in the middle of this goon fight.For a second she wondered if she’d conjured her up; her brain had definitely given her weirder images.

Two of Joker’s goons were narrowing in on the kid, arms outstretched, and the child was just fucking standing there, useless as… well, as a fucking kid.

“Harley!” Batman yelled again.There was no way he was going to be done with his own set of goons in time.

The woman screamed again.

Well, they were Joker goons, weren’t they?And that was a thing New Harley did.She kicked the butts of Joker goons.Harley set aside the identity crisis that had emerged at the thought of Batman asking her for help, and threw herself into the fight with a yell.

The first goon went down easy, just a simple strike to the back of the head to throw him off balance, followed by a kick that probably meant his knee was never going to work right again.Harley only waited long enough to see that he was down before she was after the other one.She swung her bat wildly, not even trying to strike, just driving him back, yelling the kind of gibberish that she knew would get to a Joker goon.They all knew how insane she was.

A hand touched her leg, and Harley looked down.

She was… a kid, really, that was all.Harley didn’t know a damn thing about kids, hadn’t been around any since she was one unless you counted that brat nephew of Penguin’s.She had no idea how old this one was.Two, four, five?How the fuck did you tell?Didn’t know why she was looking at her like that, all big eyes and outstretched hands either. 

Didn’t know why the sight of this kid, her weirdly familiar little blue-eyed face, froze her in her tracks.

Didn’t know why she scooped the kid up, like it came _naturally_ , and started running.

She was on her way back to the fight, where Batman hopefully had everyone tied up, where that screaming woman - the kid’s mom? - was waiting, with tiny arms wrapped around her neck and a face buried against her shoulder, when she remembered the goon she’d left standing.Remembered him just as she heard the screech of tires and looked back to see -

Yep.There he was in a van, one of those creepy white ones the Joker liked his guys to use, barreling straight at her.

She didn’t think; she never did in these situations.She just gathered everything she had and shoved as hard as she could, sending the kid flying towards her mother and Batman, her momentum throwing her back into the path of the truck.Probably should close my eyes, she thought as the lights blinded her, but she’d always preferred light to darkness. Somewhere far away she heard the woman yell again, a name.

_“Her name.I just want to keep that much.”_

_“You won’t remember.”_

_“Let me try.”_

Just before her head was about to make impact with the van’s grill, slick vines wound their way around her body and dragged her up into the sky.

Harley blinked away the spots the headlights had left and twisted around to see Ivy peering down at her.“Let me guess?” she said.“You were just in the neighborhood?”

“Weird coincidence, right?”Ivy grinned. “How do you feel about Thai tonight?”

__

  


“This was the best I could do.”Bruce wore his best apologetic smile, one that wasn’t too apologetic, because he was after all a very important man, and sure, he wanted to help, but not so much that he’d really inconvenience himself.“Every medical record I could find pertaining to your daughter.My friend at the courthouse was able to help.But I’m afraid her parents’ names remain sealed.”

“I understand.”Delia took the folder he handed her and stood up, hesitating on the other side of the wide barrier of his desk at Wayne Enterprises’ downtown office building.“I guess I don’t really need more than this.”

“Not if you’re just wondering about her health.”Bruce let just a trickle of the Batman’s edge into his voice.“That is all you wanted?”

“Yeah.”Delia smiled wryly.“I should be glad not to know more, maybe.Lucy’s a sweet kid, so there’s no reason, but I’ve always been a little afraid that she came from… I’m not sure.Bad guys, or something.”She shrugged helplessly.“Can’t be any benefit in knowing something like that, can there?For me or her.”

She gave a little laugh, the kind a real billionaire industrialist and fundraiser would fall for.Bruce smiled politely, and ignored the scrape on her cheek where a Joker goon had knocked her down the night before, trying to send a warning that she shouldn’t come after their boss the way she’d gone after his fellow villains.Or the bruises on her wrist from where Harley Quinn had wrestled her to the ground the night before that, intercepting the DNA evidence she’d stolen from the Scarecrow’s lair.

Delia no longer had a reason to track down every supervillain in the city until she could find the one she was sure had fathered her adopted child.He probably should have made sure of that to begin with, but he hadn’t expected her to be so persistent, or so resourceful. 

An obvious mistake, in retrospect.

“There is some information about her mother in that file,” he said.Delia’s pale blue eyes widened, and Bruce kept his face pleasantly blank.“Nothing identifying, but you’ll see that she was smart.Athletic.Well-educated.”He paused, then couldn’t help adding pointedly, “Maybe not what you were expecting?”

Delia shook her head, but Bruce didn’t think it was denial. 

“Thank you, again,” she said.

“Of course.” Bruce stood and reached across the desk to shake her hand.“Have a good afternoon, Ms. Quinzel.And do tell Lucy I wish her a happy birthday.”

—

For the second night in a row, he heard her coming minutes before she landed on the roof beside him.She clambered up a fire escape, stomping her feet and grumbling about tetanus, and stalked across the roof to where he was perched on the building’s edge.

“I betcha I could shove you right off,” she said.Her Jersey accent was a touch stronger than usual.

He didn’t bother to dignify that with an answer.“I’ve let you walk three times this week, Harley,” he reminded her.“Don’t expect that generosity to last.”

She snorted.“Right, because I’m sure it’s not against your Justice League code to arrest a woman for taking in a view of Gotham harbor.”She paused.“Or for helping you fend off some goons and rescue a kid, and almost getting herself pulverized for her trouble.”

“I’m sure I could come up with something.”

That time, she was the one who didn’t answer, just sat down on the edge of the building a few feet away from him, her legs dangling down over the street.She had her bat in her hand, like always, but she tossed it down beside her carelessly.Batman didn’t take his eyes off her, but he let the moment linger until she spoke again. 

“Did you take care of her?”

He shouldn’t have been surprised, after the close call the night before, but it still caught him enough off guard that he almost fell for it.But he looked at her, the narrow, speculative expression in her eyes, and shook his head.“You don’t remember.”

She sighed, put out.“Not really.I don’t remember who _her_ is, anyway.I don’t think….I almost remember her name, but it doesn’t stick.”A troubled frown crossed her face and then smoothed out. _Like putting on a mask_ , he thought.“But I remember you making a promise.And I … I remember caring.”She shrugged, deceptively casual.“I don’t do that much, so - “

He might have laughed, but she was still a supervillain and Batman didn’t laugh with them.“I keep my promises,” was all he said.

“Good.”She chewed her lip again for a minute, then nodded.“Good.And I don’t remember because you did something to me.That part was real, right?I mean, that stuff about memory alteration and some people being susceptible…it wasn’t just all me, making myself forget?”

He smiled faintly, thinking that for the first time in a long time he was seeing the Dr. Quinzel he’d met that first night in Arkham.“It wasn’t just you.You said it was important that you not remember, and you thought the experimental memory alternation procedure would work on you, so I assisted.”

“By fucking with my memories?”

“With your consent, yes.”

“Bats, just because coerced consent works on rodents…” But her heart didn’t seem to be in the joke.“She’s okay?” she asked.“Whoever she is?”

Batman thought of a shadowy figure creeping into the lairs of all Gotham’s supervillains, looking innocent items like forks and cups, hunting for DNA.Of a fiercely protective woman with a thick accent and surprising skills who wanted the best for her daughter.“She’s very well protected, by someone who cares about her.”

“That’s more than most of us can say.”Batman refrained from pointing out that Harley had been rescued from her last three failed heists by a certain supposedly misanthropic ecoterrorist.“It’s been real, Bats.”She jumped to her feet, snatching up her weapon.Putting her costume back on, he supposed.“I’ll see you around.”

She was halfway back to the fire escape before Batman finished arguing with himself.“Harley,” he called.She turned back, eyebrows high. “Now that your circumstances are different, if you ever change your mind….”

He’d known it was the right call, when he helped her that night three years ago.He’d become certain when the Joker had killed his son.But Harley was not the person she’d been back then.Didn’t mean she was a _better_ person, just not the same.

She slowly shook her head. “I have this person inside me,” she said.“I call her sane Harley, but that’s not really true.She’s me, you know?They all are.I know that.But she’s… she’s the me who was still trying.And I think she was in charge that night.So whatever she decided, we should stick to that.For everyone involved.”She hesitated.“Do you remember what I said when you asked why I thought it would work?Taking my memories?”

“You said that you would replace those memories with something.Like putting on another costume, or another mask.”

_Just another story._

She nodded.“You ever take yours off?‘Cause I gotta say, as a therapist, I don’t think your whole deal is very healthy.”

Bruce thought about Damian calling him Father even in costume.About Dick alway insisting on blurring those lines.About Alfred bringing heirloom china into the cave.“There are people who see past it,” he said.“What about you?”

She laughed.“Aw, Bats, concerned about me?My mask is my face, remember?Ain’t nothing but masks all the way down.”

Batman could see thick vines creeping over the building next door.He suspected Harley might have someone who got under her layers too.“You should go before I remember your criminal history,” he said.

She gave a little wave, then dropped over the edge of the building onto the fire escape, the metal clanging beneath her.“Catch ya later, bat-fucker!”

“Goodnight, Harleen,” he said.

—

_“Her name.I want to keep that much.”_

_“Lucy.”_

_A tiny face with pale eyes.Familiar as her own._

It’s just a dream though, isn’t it?There was no Lucy, no extra trip away from Arkham, no mystery of October 2nd.No strange moments of peace with the Bat. 

Sane Harleen, Dr. Quinzel, retreats, and Harley paints over the space where she was with bright red memories, clear and flat.New costumes, new stories.

It’s better that way, for everyone.

—

“Did I ever tell you I had a sister?” Harley asked as she dug into her potato curry.Ivy shook her head.“Yeah, I do.Older sister.She pissed my dad off something awful and ran away when I was twelve.They cut her out of all the family photos and everything.”She licked some sauce from her fingers.“But she was cool.Looked a little like me.Like I looked back then.”

“Huh.What brought on this moment of sharing?”Ivy narrowed her eyes. “It better not be some lame move to get me to open up.You know I don’t do caring and sharing.”

“Ugh, no.”Harley chugged back half her beer, and shrugged.“I dunno.She was just on my mind for some reason today.I don’t know what happened to her.She’s probably married and raising a bunch of brats in suburbia by now.”They both shuddered with horror.

For a minute, Harley tried to remember what Delia had looked like, what her kids might look like, but it was her own image that kept imposing itself over her sister’s.Then she shrugged, forcing the thought away into those dark corners of her brain where the things she didn’t like to think about went to hide from the light, and changed the subject.

“Hey, you want to get matching tattoos?” she asked.“I was thinking that would be cool.”

—

Tattoo talk made her nervous, but Harley was prattling away in her usual manner, jumping from one slightly disturbing suggestion to another, so Ivy let it go.

She’d felt bad telling Harley about that night in Arkham years ago, after promising she wouldn’t, but at least she’d kept back the important part.Harley still didn’t know that Ivy had been the one to find her an inmate willing to do a tattoo, that they’d commemorated the date while tears streaked down behind Harley’s mask.A memento of a memory Harley didn’t actually have.

It wasn’t that Ivy wasn’t curious, but Harley had a unique relationship with the truth, and Ivy figured if her friend ever decided she needed to remember that night, she’d let her know.

For now, she said, “I’ll think about it, but if there is any kind of clown theme, I’m out,” and Harley laughed.

—

“Mommy!”

Delia Quinzel scooped her daughter up in her arms as she stepped through the door.“Happy Birthday, Lucy,” she said, grinning down at the little girl’s face.She was alert for any sign of distress, but Lucy was handling their near-mugging and rescue by a superhero and an oddly dressed “sidekick” better than her mother was. 

“Today’s my party!”

“That’s right.”Delia swung her daughter onto her hip and carried her inside, pausing to pay the babysitter and let her go.“I’ve got everything ready.We’ve just got to get you dressed.”She carried her towards the bedroom.

“Can I wear my hair in pigtails?” Lucy asked.“Like the lady who rescued us?”

Delia paused, looking down at her daughter’s guileless blue eyes.Just like her own, she thought, and there was no reason to ever think any further than that.Not now that she had the information from Bruce Wayne’s file, the secret she’d guessed long ago when she looked at Lucy and saw her own sister.

“I think you’d look beautiful in pigtails,” she said.

**Author's Note:**

> To my giftee: Happy Valentine's Day! Your prompt was so intriguing. I think I probably went in a different direction than you were expecting, but I hope you enjoyed the fic.


End file.
